I’d guess that individual donors planning to support the EAIF should top up Open Phil grantees, either with or instead of donating to the EAIF.
Based on the argument here by Ben Todd, I think individual donors who donate to Open Phil grantees do at least as good as both Open Phil and the EAIF, if all of the following assumptions hold:
Open Phil’s judgement is sufficiently good,
The reason Open Phil doesn’t fund EAIF grantees directly is because Open Phil believes them to be less cost-effective on the margin than its own direct grantees, so, at least,
not just due to legal reasons,
not just due to falling outside the scope of all of their grantmaking areas,
not just because Open Phil tends to avoid small grants of the size the EAIF makes, and
not just because Open Phil was unaware of them, and
not due to any combination of the above.
Open Phil’s grant sizes are sufficiently sensitive in the right way to how much funding its grantees get.
Basically, under these assumptions, Open Phil grantees are either most cost-effective on the margin and in expectation, or Open Phil responds by granting less to those grantees and spending that funding on the next best marginal opportunities, which may include the EAIF itself. If Open Phil thought another dollar to EAIF would have been better than the last dollar to one of its other grantees, it would have granted that dollar to the EAIF instead, and vice versa. The “vice versa”, that EAIF is at least as good on the margin as Open Phil’s last dollar to its other grantees, seems to contradict the conjunction of 1 (Open Phil’s judgement) and 2 (Open Phil believes EAIF grantees are less cost-effective than Open Phil grantees).
So, under these same assumptions, individual donors who donate to the EAIF risk doing worse than Open Phil, since the EAIF has ruled out contributing to opportunities that are better in expectation than their actual EAIF grantees.
All of the above assumptions seem plausibly wrong. That being said, Open Phil could in principle avoid subpoints 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 by just deferring more of its grantmaking to the EAIF.
Note that this doesn’t require the EAIF managers to have worse judgement than Open Phil. The point is that Open Phil starts with the most promising opportunities it can, and the EAIF does not. You could think of Open Phil and the EAIF as one organization, and you can do better by topping up the best opportunities for which they left room for other donors than by adding to the marginal opportunities.
I’d guess that individual donors planning to support the EAIF should top up Open Phil grantees, either with or instead of donating to the EAIF.
Based on the argument here by Ben Todd, I think individual donors who donate to Open Phil grantees do at least as good as both Open Phil and the EAIF, if all of the following assumptions hold:
Open Phil’s judgement is sufficiently good,
The reason Open Phil doesn’t fund EAIF grantees directly is because Open Phil believes them to be less cost-effective on the margin than its own direct grantees, so, at least,
not just due to legal reasons,
not just due to falling outside the scope of all of their grantmaking areas,
not just because Open Phil tends to avoid small grants of the size the EAIF makes, and
not just because Open Phil was unaware of them, and
not due to any combination of the above.
Open Phil’s grant sizes are sufficiently sensitive in the right way to how much funding its grantees get.
Basically, under these assumptions, Open Phil grantees are either most cost-effective on the margin and in expectation, or Open Phil responds by granting less to those grantees and spending that funding on the next best marginal opportunities, which may include the EAIF itself. If Open Phil thought another dollar to EAIF would have been better than the last dollar to one of its other grantees, it would have granted that dollar to the EAIF instead, and vice versa. The “vice versa”, that EAIF is at least as good on the margin as Open Phil’s last dollar to its other grantees, seems to contradict the conjunction of 1 (Open Phil’s judgement) and 2 (Open Phil believes EAIF grantees are less cost-effective than Open Phil grantees).
So, under these same assumptions, individual donors who donate to the EAIF risk doing worse than Open Phil, since the EAIF has ruled out contributing to opportunities that are better in expectation than their actual EAIF grantees.
All of the above assumptions seem plausibly wrong. That being said, Open Phil could in principle avoid subpoints 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 by just deferring more of its grantmaking to the EAIF.
Note that this doesn’t require the EAIF managers to have worse judgement than Open Phil. The point is that Open Phil starts with the most promising opportunities it can, and the EAIF does not. You could think of Open Phil and the EAIF as one organization, and you can do better by topping up the best opportunities for which they left room for other donors than by adding to the marginal opportunities.